Maryland, Liberia — Fourth Judicial Circuit Court Judge wants judges and lawyers to demonstrate neutrality and fairness in dispensing justice.
The Judge of the Fourth Judicial Circuit Court in Maryland, Southeast Liberia, His Honor, Nelson B. Chineh, calls on all judicial and justice actors operating under the directive of the 4th Judicial Circuit Court to demonstrate neutrality and fair justice in their work.
He made the call during the May Term of Court opening on Monday, May 13, 2024, stressing that neutrality is a key factor in dispensing free, fair, and transparent justice for those who deserve justice.
Speaking on the theme, " The threat to judicial independence is a threat to national democracy," Judge Chineh reminds citizens and residents of Maryland County that judicial independence is about the ability of the court and judges to perform their duties free of influence or control by other actors.
He stresses that the court should not be subject to improper influence from the other two branches of government, whether for private or political reasons. He notes that judicial influence can work positively or negatively against the democracy of every nation.
He says one of the ways to improve judicial independence is by enhancing judicial security through enforcement of the rule of law regardless of popular sentiments.
Judge Chineh explains that Judges must be able to render decisions free of pressure, inducement, enticement, threat, or intimidation to discharge their duties.
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He discloses that if Judges do not feel free to fairly evaluate the matter before them based on evidence adduced at trial and the relevant laws free of any extended pressure, threat, or intimidation, then they will feel constrained in their decision-making power.
He notes that societal failure to take seriously the issue of judicial security threatens everyone's safety, which is another area of critical importance to the administration of justice.
He adds that the Government of Liberia, by and through the Ministry of Justice, should prioritize security for all judicial participants.
"In recent times, our nation witnessed an increasing escalation of threatening, intimidating, and harassing incidents towards our judiciary, and these incidents posed a threat to judicial Independence," he recalls.
The judge continues that even though the work of a judge involves an inherent risk in every decision reached or made by either party who appears before him or her, it exposes the judge to the threat of revenge as if he or she were the one who injured the party.
He reiterates his call to the government to urgently provide security for all judicial participants if judicial independence must be realized.
For his part, Cllr. Joshua G. K. Odoi, a former prosecutor and defense lawyer who is now a private lawyer, said judges need to have a free space for democracy and judicial independence.
He reveals that there are people within the judicial system who are influenced by outside forces and sometimes insiders, and as a result of their actions and inaction, injustice is dispensed instead of justice.
"We will appreciate magistrates understanding the substance of averment before acting, as many or some do not understand; they are moved by sentiment and sometimes anger that comes from nowhere," Cllr. Odoi adds.
He says another trending thing in the jurisdiction, which is bad for justice, is that magistrates, in the interest of 13.5, will care less to listen to the averment but are very interested in the pecuniary value that is at stake, and sometimes it is from these values that they based their 13.5, even to the point where they get to know the case is not a criminal case that requires bond but they will hasting to threaten defendants with incarceration allegedly, and because of fear of being incarcerated, those defendants are constrained to comply with their expectation and exploitation by paying bond fees.
An averment is a formal statement by a party in a case of a fact or circumstance which the party offers to prove or substantiate.
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Though the former persecutor and defense lawyer didn't specify which magistrate or county, the Association of Trial Judges proxy said magistrates are very knowledgeable of the law, and he doesn't think they would go to an extent to exploit parties appearing before them.
He says the allegation by Cllr. Joshua G. K. Odoi has a propensity to damage the repetition of magistrates, adding that if he, as a magistrate, presided over a case and made a procedure error, he could be taken for summary proceedings, where such error would be exposed.
However, the May term of the court had on its docket sixty (60) civil cases and eleven (11) criminal cases, five of them rape cases, including statutory rape and sodomy.
At the same time, the superintendent of the Harper prison laments prolonged detention of pretrial detainees has caused the facility to be overcrowded.
According to the superintendent, the prison has a capacity for ninety prisoners but currently accommodates a hundred persons, including 38 pretrial detainees and 62 convicts. Editing by Jonathan Browne
